


Pretty on the Inside

by hotelmontana



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Episode: s01e06 Dalek, F/M, I remember being really concerned about how obvious to be about it, Sentient TARDIS, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhappy Ending, Ye Olde Fice, like almost nonexistent, the noncon is subtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 10:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19439917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotelmontana/pseuds/hotelmontana
Summary: She screams. Screams and screams and doesn’t stop until her throat is raw and bloody.





	Pretty on the Inside

**Author's Note:**

> Old fic. I remember thinking the Doctor was just a minor shift away from being truly terrifying in that episode. This was the result. It's really a meditation on fear and what we can become when we let it rule us. And you know. Misplaced trust and following strangers into their time ship equivalent of a panel van.
> 
> Also, the noncon is subtle enough to be almost nonexistent. The first draft was a lot more graphic about it, but I felt uncomfortable about it being more than subtext. Still. Warning applies.

Now I’m somewhere I am not supposed to be  
And I can see things I know I really shouldn’t see  
And now I know why; now I know why  
Things aren’t as pretty on the inside  
\- Nine Inch Nails, “Only"

Once upon a time--and such a nebulous concept Rose thinks that is, spanning days or weeks, months or years, it’s never sure--but once upon a time, there was a magic box, and in it, a magic man. He took her by the hand and said, come with me, Rose Tyler. I’ll show you things of which you’ve only dreamt, and things you never could’ve imagined. Like every fairy tale girl, she believed him, because she was stupid and small, and she didn’t know any better. She went with him, and he was true to his word. He wrapped up the universe, put a bow on all of time, and gave it to her as a gift. She saw the end of the world, and she saw the world saved. Through it all, more than anything, she saw him, her magician. Rose looked into his eyes, straight through their muted blue, and thought she could see his soul. She could see the power and the time, the strength and the love, and thought that was everything. 

It wasn’t, of course. It isn’t. The rest comes later, and by the time she’s seen all of him, it’s already too late.

***

They have words, she and the Doctor, and she is very cross with him. It isn’t fair, she thinks, to leave Adam stranded in America, when he seems so lost, so in need of her help. But the Doctor won’t budge, and when it is just the two of them in the control room, the Doctor stone-silent and brooding, Rose stomps off to her room. 

That night, she dreams of the underground. It’s the first nightmare she’s had since she first took the Doctor’s hand. In her dream, she is back in the bunker, sealed in tight with the Dalek at her side. She cowers there, sweaty and suffocating, fear so intense she can taste it, like sucking on aluminum foil. The Dalek’s tentacle wraps itself tightly around her hand, because it knows fear as well as she does. The soft, pudgy creature burbles helplessly. They huddle together, hiding from the Doctor’s rage.

Rose wakes after too little sleep, with dry, burning eyes and the overwhelming feeling that she is missing something important. The TARDIS is too quiet, and when Rose tries to leave her room, the door won’t open. 

She screams. Screams and screams and doesn’t stop until her throat is raw and bloody. She screams until she’s dizzy. She screams until she collapses and the world goes dark. And even then, she still screams.

“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor says. He grasps her face gently in his palms. They’re rough and hard against her cheeks. “Everything’s fine, now. You’re safe, here. You’ll always be safe.”

When she cries, he kisses the teardrops from her lashes.

***

Rose’s rooms are, by any standard, large. Her bedroom alone is bigger than her mum’s entire flat. It used to chafe at her, that tiny space, with the two of them living on top of each other. Now, she misses it. She misses the splashing shower sounds of her mother singing ABBA off-key. She misses running out to the corner shop for milk and trudging all the way back up again. She misses Billy Parson’s practical jokes. She misses going next door to feed the cat when Mrs. Abernathy is gone to Liverpool to visit her daughter. She misses all of it, every bit of her normal, mundane life. She wishes she could tell her mum and Mickey that she was wrong, so wrong. That she’d trade it all, time and forever and everything, just to feel London’s grime on her skin again. 

She doesn’t know how long he’s kept her there. There’s no way to tell one day from the next. 

Rose wonders how long it will be until she goes mad. She thinks maybe she’s mad already.

***

The Doctor disappears, sometimes for days at a stretch. Rose knows when he’s not onboard the ship; the TARDIS is noisier. It thrums in time with her heartbeat. She doesn’t ask the ship to release her. It would if it could, she knows. But the TARDIS is as much a prisoner as she is. It stills when he returns, bending to his will. 

He brings her trinkets from outside. Gold combs with blue stones that he watches her fix in her hair. 

“Beautiful,” he whispers against her neck. “My beautiful Rose.”

***

There is a chair, large and plush, next to her bed. Sometimes, she wakes to find the Doctor watching her from it. One day, Rose moves the chair to the other side of the room. It’s a heavy chair, and she’s not as strong as she used to be, but the satisfaction of seeing it there, far from where the Doctor wants it, makes up for the sore muscles and the sweat.

It’s not much, but it’s all the rebellion she has.

When she next wakes, though, it’s from the pressure of his eyes, and the chair is right back where it was before. The Doctor doesn’t say anything, and Rose never tries to move it again.

She never tries to escape.

***

Rose takes long, hot baths, soaking and scrubbing until she is pruned and raw. Her skin is soft like a little girl’s. The smell of salt tang and incense smoke follow her like a shadow. She runs her palms over rough silk robes and yielding sheets, laughing at how they cannot capture her slippery body.

A jar of swirling, alien oils. They circle her in gold gilt and silver shimmer, preserving her like baby’s first booties.

“Oh, Rose,” the Doctor says. His fingers enshrine her hips. “Always Rose.” 

***

Her hair doesn’t grow, anymore. Nor do her fingernails. If she thinks about it too much, how she’ll never have long nails or hair other than the Rumpelstiltskin’s gold that the Doctor caresses, she loses her breath. 

Rose wonders what will happen if she is hurt, if her wounds will heal. She spends long hours thinking about her mirror. About smashing it to pieces with her fists. She has other thoughts, too. Thoughts of her bed sheets, her bathtub, of the artery in her neck where she lays her hand to marvel at her still-beating heart.

***

When he is gone, the TARDIS gives her a window. It shows her the vastness of space. The vortex. Nebulas and moons. The birth of a star. It puts planets at her fingertips. Oceans and fishes. Trees and creatures. Towers that pierce an orange sky. It never gives her Earth, though. Never London. Never a shabby flat. Never anything that will remind her and bring the madness closer. 

But there are garlands of sweet Sampaguita. He strings it through her hair as though she is the Madonna.

“Perfect,” the Doctor prays, his cheek pressed to her stomach. “My perfect Rose.” 

***

He is sitting in his chair. She is pretending to be asleep. He leans close to her. She feels his breath on her palm. His fingers creep over the edge of the bed. They crawl up her thigh, play a melody on her side, waltz on her shoulder. 

“Rose,” the Doctor says in a voice that sounds like her own. “My Rose.” He gently cups her face in his palm. They’re smooth, now, and slender, unlike his old, rough workman’s hands. “How long are you going to stay with me?”

“Forever,” Rose whispers, and wonders how long forever really is.


End file.
